Standard Procedure
by Archontruth
Summary: Tenten has a doctor's appointment, and Hinata Hyuuga comes along for moral support! Evil!Hinata


**Standard Procedure**

* * *

"Tell me, Tenten, do you watch Family Guy?" Hinata Hyuuga asked quietly. The lovely, raven-haired twenty year old with pale eyes that lacked visible pupils was reclining at ease in a chair against the wall of a doctor's waiting room. The space was sparsely furnished: just a few other chairs, bare white walls adorned only with a poster or two, and a wilting potted plant in the corner. The florescent lights cast a harsh glare on everything in the room.

"What? No... I don't." If Hinata was calm and relaxed, Tenten was anything but. A year Hinata's senior, she had brown hair gathered up in two buns on top of her head. She sat next to the Hyuuga clan's young leader, hunched over and tense. When she looked up to answer the question her plain face was slightly puffy, her dark eyes reddened as though she'd been crying recently.

"This is a really good episode," Hinata told Tenten with a friendly smile. "Have a look." She held the tablet out to her friend and colleague, who studied it as she might an offered cobra.

"Oh… thank you Hinata, that's all right. I don't need to-" Tenten demurred.

"I insist." A cold edge entered Hinata's cordial tone as she cut her friend off. Tenten took the tablet with a defeated expression.

On the screen, the Griffin family's malicious baby Stewie placed a toy car at the top of the stairs in their house and then distracted his mother Lois at a critical moment, causing her to tumble down the stairs head-over-heels in comical fashion.

Tenten's throat produced a tiny, choked noise during Lois' fall, and she looked away from the tablet.

"What about Looney Tunes?" Hinata inquired brightly. "Did you ever watch cartoons?"

"No," Tenten replied, her voice leaden, "we didn't own a television when I was a child."

"You really missed out then. I've got some of those on here, too." Leaning over, Hinata swiped the screen to a second video clip.

Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam were at odds with each other in a desert saloon. Bugs eventually tricked Sam into firing his gun, which missed the rabbit and put a hole in the hat of a massive, surly cowboy. The offended man loomed over Sam as his red mustache drooped in dismay. The scene ended with Yosemite Sam getting punched in the gut and folding over on the floor while Bugs Bunny munched on a carrot and grinned.

Tenten's face was pale when the clip stopped, and she gave Hinata a haunted look. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"We're just passing the time, Tenten," Hinata replied breezily. She perked up after a moment, grinning at the visibly stressed brunette. "If cartoons aren't your thing that's fine; what about reality TV?"

Tenten shook her head, holding out the tablet. "I don't want to watch any more. _Please._ "

Hinata grasped Tenten's elbow, meeting the other kunoichi's strength with her own and forcing the tablet back into Tenten's lap. "Just one more," Hinata replied with polite firmness. "You'll want to see it."

There was a bruise forming on Tenten's arm when Hinata let go. "All right," she acceded dully.

Hinata reached over to swipe again and adroitly type a password into a secure streaming application. Immediately it opened up a video with a red circle and 'LIVE' in the upper right corner. The camera showed a room with bare concrete walls and a floor interrupted only by a metal drain cover.

The room had three men in it, all with pale eyes and aristocratic features that marked them as Hinata's kin. Two were young and had green tattoos on their foreheads, the Caged Bird Seal that marked members of the branch family. The last Hyuuga was much older, with white hair, a lined face and an unmarked forehead; he was, like Hinata, a member of the ruling main family.

Of the two young branch Hyuuga, one was stripped to the waist and chained to a steel chair in the center of the room. His head had been recently and roughly shaved. His face and torso were badly bruised. His muscled chest also featured a wide starburst scar low on his left ribs, the remnant of an old war wound that had nearly killed him. The other branch Hyuuga was clothed and standing, with dark hair that fell to his waist caught up in a simple warrior's braid.

"Neji! What are they doing to him?" Tenten choked out, staring at the bound man. She got her answer when the standing branch Hyuuga punched Neji full in the face, sending a spray of blood and what looked like a tooth flying. Tenten's hand flew to her mouth to muffle her horrified cry.

"Neji is being re-educated in the concept of loyalty to his family," Hinata replied. "He's been a very bad boy, after all." A shark's smile crossed her face. "But you know that already."

Tenten's normally steady hands shook badly as she held the tablet. The vicious beating continued until the older Hyuuga stepped forward and the younger retreated with a respectful bow. There was no sound accompanying the video, but the fear in Neji's eyes was plain. The Hyuuga elder's thin fingers formed several hand seals, and the brand on Neji's forehead glowed with green light. He started thrashing frantically, heedless of the manacles cutting into his skin. His face was contorted in agony, his lips parting in one silent scream after another.

Tenten broke into tears. "Oh Neji," she sobbed. "Hinata, for the love of god he's your cousin! Make them stop!"

"I'd like to, Tenten," Hinata replied sympathetically, rubbing the other kunoichi's shoulder in a comforting gesture until she flinched away, "but only you can stop Neji's suffering."

Tenten looked at Hinata desperately. "But I'm already obeying! I'm here, doing what you told me to! I'm…" she trailed off with a devastated expression, pressing a hand to her stomach.

"Oh I know, and you're doing a very good job so far," Hinata said encouragingly. "I just wanted to make sure you remembered why you're here: you and Neji screwed up. Now wipe your face before the doctor calls; you look terrible." Hinata reclaimed her tablet from Tenten's slack hands and handed her a tissue to dry her tears.

A few minutes later the doors across the waiting room opened and a nurse's head popped out. "Miss Tenten? We're ready for you."

Tenten turned to Hinata, her expression desperate. "Please, Hinata," she begged in a choked whisper, "I thought we were friends. Don't make me do this!"

"Oh Tenten, we _are_ friends," Hinata replied brightly. "If any other woman in Konoha had done what you have, she'd be dead!" Tenten shuddered at the cheerful tone with which Hinata delivered that pronouncement. "It's _because_ you're my friend that I'm giving you this chance to atone for your error. Now, either you take care of the _little problem_ you and Neji created… or I will."

Tenten flinched as though struck, and Hinata saw the helpless rage that had been building all night flash behind her dark eyes. Hinata watched curiously, wondering if Tenten would attack her in spite of the dire consequences. They were both veterans of the last war, after all, and deadly kunoichi. Such a fight would be... interesting.

After a few seconds Tenten made the intelligent choice, lowering her gaze in surrender. She climbed to her feet and started walking, visibly collecting herself. Her eyes were dead but her face was composed when she followed the nurse through the double doors leading to the procedure rooms.

Hinata shook her head with a sigh after the doors had closed, turning her wrist up to look at the face of a slim golden watch with a diamond-studded face. "Great; now I'm going to be late for dinner with Naruto," she lamented. Glancing out the front windows of the waiting room she could see people out and about on the nighttime streets through the laminate sign on the glass that read 'East Konoha Abortion Clinic'.

"I shouldn't have to deal with this," Hinata continued mournfully. "They both should have known better!"

Members of the Hyuuga clan usually weren't permitted casual relationships; the clan's leaders went to the trouble of arranging suitable marriages, after all. Hinata's father Hiashi Hyuuga had bent that rule for his nephew the prodigy. He had generously allowed Neji to date Tenten, even though she was low-born and lacked the pedigree to be his eventual spouse. Thus, Hinata had been wroth to discover soon after her father's passing and her assumption of leadership that Neji had abused that generosity and gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He hadn't even had the decency to deal with the error on his own once Tenten had gotten emotionally attached and decided that she wanted to _keep_ the baby. The whole situation was completely unforgivable. The power of the Hyuuga was in their eyes and the trait was genetic; there was a good reason why the clan was so strict about the propagation of the bloodline.

Remembering her earlier lamentation, Hinata dug her phone out of her purse. She quickly tapped out a text message to her fiance Naruto Uzumaki, with whom a proper betrothal had been negotiated and all the proprieties observed. 'Sorry babe, running a bit late; clan business. DX Get us a table and some drinks. I'll be there as soon as I can. Love you! xoxo'

"Byakugan," Hinata murmured under her breath, activating the peerless eyes of the Hyuuga that saw everything. Veins stood out around her eyes and temples and pulsed in time with her heartbeat as she waited and watched what was happening on the other side of the wall. Hinata had to give Tenten credit for a fair amount of emotional toughness; she kept it together while the doctor did his work. The brunette did break down and start crying again after the procedure was done, but that hardly mattered.

Hinata released the byakugan with a satisfied expression. Picking up her phone again, she called one of her contacts. "Elder Hotomo? It's taken care of. Now castrate him so he won't be tempted to make a 'mistake' ever again. Yes. Goodbye." Hinata put her phone away and rose from her seat, leaving the clinic without a backward glance. Tenten could make it home on her own, hopefully a little wiser about the way Konoha worked: crossing the most powerful clan of shinobi in the village was a seriously bad idea. Neji and Tenten were just lucky they hadn't gotten into this mess a few years earlier; Hinata's father Hiashi would have had them both killed for such an offense.

Hinata's phone pinged with Naruto's text tone and she glanced at it eagerly. 'Sure thing, beautiful; see you soon' Hinata smiled and hummed happily as she headed across town to the restaurant where her husband-to-be was waiting for her.


End file.
